November 2012

'Tis the Season to be Jolly! And with the Christmas holiday season fully under way, there is quite a bit to be jolly about. Orders are up, people are loosening their wallets, and sentimentality is running high... it's the perfect time to be selling photographs!

So are you prepared for the holiday rush? If not, here are a few pointers to help you make it through all of the Christmas craziness with a minimal number of problems:

Christmas & Holiday Suggestions

Put a note up on your storefront letting your clients know when the Christmas order deadline is. This can be done on your storefront homepage, on the event login page, on your event notes, through promotional emails, or even in all four of those areas.

When you change the status of an order, be sure to check the “Email this Customer a Status Update” checkbox before saving the change. Putting a checkmark in that box will cause an email to be sent to your customers that will inform them of the new order status. Keeping your clients well-informed of the status of their orders will go a long way in easing their worried minds, and it may even save you from the hassle of receiving panicked/frantic calls demanding to know where specific orders are.

Create a new shipping option called “Christmas Delivery” or “Delivery by Christmas”. This option should be created in addition to your standard pricing options, and as Christmas grows closer you can increase the cost of this option to help cover any priority shipping fees that you may incur in sending out the orders.

Quickly fulfill your orders! Even if you don't follow any of the other suggestions that we are offering, follow this one. Quickly fulfilling your orders is always very important, but during this time of year it is even more so. Waiting a few weeks to send out your orders might be convenient for you, but it will make your clients very nervous and will result in more fuss than is necessary.

Once your deadline for Christmas delivery has passed, change all of your notes (from our first suggestion) to let everyone know that it is too late to expect the orders before Christmas. Also remove the new “Christmas Delivery” shipping option.

Include insurance and signature/delivery confirmation on your packages. This might cost you a little extra when you are sending out your orders, but it will also save you from a big headache if problems should happen to arise.

If you have a high-resolution subscription and don't want to bother with the hassle of the post office, consider using our fulfillment services. Orders are shipped the next business day, and all orders automatically receive a UPS tracking number when they are shipped.

Put on a sale to encourage additional orders. There are quite a few people still on the fence as to what they would like to purchase for their loved ones for Christmas; give them a reason to select prints as their gift.

There will always be somebody that wants to cause trouble, but by following the suggestions given above, most of the Christmas craziness can be avoided.

What's New?

For those of you that don't follow us on twitter or facebook it may have seemed like there hasn't been a lot of activity around here for the past few months, but we have actually been very busy!

New Storefront

The project taking most of our time lately is the new storefront that we launched just last month. If you haven't already seen it in action, you should definitely take a look at our demo! Some of the benefits of the new storefront include: larger images, simpler navigation, better mobile compatibility, and a cleaner/more modern look.

To enable the new storefront on your account, go into the "preferences" page within the "Setup" tab and select the "Latest and Greatest" option from the "Storefront Style" droplist.

Order Fulfillment

We have also been busy adding on to our fulfillment options (U.S. only), and we have recently added free shipping and multiple types of premium packaging.

Free Shipping
All orders placed through our fulfillment service now receive free ground shipping on orders over $11.00. Orders under $11.00 are rounded up to $11.00 and also have no additional shipping costs.

Elegant Proof Box
We recently added two beautiful packaging options to our fulfillment area. The first option is strictly for 4x6 images and is called an "Elegant Proof Box." Elegant proof boxes come in a variety of colors and can hold up to 300 4x6 images.

Elegant Packaging
The second option is simply called "Elegant Packaging." Elegant packaging is available in a variety of colors and sizes, and can hold up to 50 prints per box.

Conclusion

And that's it for us for this month! Thank you for all of your continued support and suggestions. We hope you all have a very happy and successful holiday season!

If you have any questions about anything from this newsletter, please feel free to email us directly at support@instaproofs.com.

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